Sharing in Christ’s suffering

Read 1 Peter 3:17

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Peter has already said that suffering for doing good is commendable to God and in line with Christ’s own example (2:20-21). It also results in personal blessing (3:14). Here he returns to that theme but now in the particular context of witness in the face of persecution.

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Just as it was God’s will for Jesus to be crucified, so too those who follow Jesus must also be willing to take up the cross (Mk.8:34); this means that suffering for him will at times be a part of our Christian experience (Jn.15:20; Acts 14:22; 2 Tim.3:12). Out of that will come effective witness which brings people to God, as was the case with Jesus’s own suffering and death (“For” in v18 shows that the thought there is connected with and supports v17).

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Paul understood that sharing in Christ’s sufferings (Ph.3:10; Col.1:24) was both an honour and an opportunity for witness. In prison he was “an ambassador in chains” who requested prayer “so that I will fearlessly make known the gospel” (Eph.6:19-20; Col.4:3). His imprisonments advanced the gospel, both among his guards and by encouraging others “to speak the word of God more courageously and fearlessly” – he was in “chains for Christ” (Ph.1:13-14).